In the true scheme of things, I should now be luxuriating in the knowledge that today was the first day of a week long holiday. Ah! Cruel fate that I should find myself a job in the vaccationless wastes of October, November and most of December that is the school term in Catalonia.
As my British friends fly back to a well earned holiday (or in Paul’s case drooling over the ways in which he is going to spend the king’s ransom that he will be paid in January) I have found myself back in school.
Not only back in school, but also losing the first free period that I had in the week and facing the prospect of the collapsed classes and re-jigged timetables that was the English Department’s response to the head of department having an absence of more than three days known in advance.
Years of union activism seem to have been lost in the fluffy, candyfloss way of thinking that my colleagues have about how to deal with professional situations in the working environment.
My bitterness is exacerbated by the knowledge that we are going to be subjected (are subjecting ourselves?) to the excruciatingly boring pointlessness of a Giant Meeting conducted in a mixture of Catalan and Castilliano which, even if I could understand the languages with ease and fluency would still be soul-destroyingly vapid. A system has been instigated to expedite the process of discussion of individual pupils, but I know, with the same certainty that comes when you check your lottery ticket, that nothing will change and there will be nothing to lighten the load.
The meeting (O God, I can barely contemplate it with anything other than infinite horror!) is scheduled to end or die or implode into an educational black hole at 7.30 pm. I am debating whether or not to walk out at this time pleading an Old War Wound or claiming the Fifth Amendment or citing the UN charter on torture.
Whatever happens this is going to be a long, long day and I am ready to lie down NOW! And it isn’t even lunch time yet.
There is no god.
As my British friends fly back to a well earned holiday (or in Paul’s case drooling over the ways in which he is going to spend the king’s ransom that he will be paid in January) I have found myself back in school.
Not only back in school, but also losing the first free period that I had in the week and facing the prospect of the collapsed classes and re-jigged timetables that was the English Department’s response to the head of department having an absence of more than three days known in advance.
Years of union activism seem to have been lost in the fluffy, candyfloss way of thinking that my colleagues have about how to deal with professional situations in the working environment.
My bitterness is exacerbated by the knowledge that we are going to be subjected (are subjecting ourselves?) to the excruciatingly boring pointlessness of a Giant Meeting conducted in a mixture of Catalan and Castilliano which, even if I could understand the languages with ease and fluency would still be soul-destroyingly vapid. A system has been instigated to expedite the process of discussion of individual pupils, but I know, with the same certainty that comes when you check your lottery ticket, that nothing will change and there will be nothing to lighten the load.
The meeting (O God, I can barely contemplate it with anything other than infinite horror!) is scheduled to end or die or implode into an educational black hole at 7.30 pm. I am debating whether or not to walk out at this time pleading an Old War Wound or claiming the Fifth Amendment or citing the UN charter on torture.
Whatever happens this is going to be a long, long day and I am ready to lie down NOW! And it isn’t even lunch time yet.
There is no god.
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